Archive for the ‘petition’ Tag

After being de-listed from their federal protection status, over 800 wolves have been killed in the state of Idaho. As it appears, this has not been enough: authorities are planning to organize some contests hunts in which professional gunners will be sent in the wild and try bring back as many “trophies” as possible.

Such despicable wolf and coyote “derby’ are scheduled for the 28th and 29th of December. Ironically, organizers claim this is an event dedicated to children too, as it will consist in cash prizes and trophies for the hunter who catches the largest wolf and kills the most coyotes.

In the ’60 wolves faced extinction in the lower 48 states. There have been grueling efforts to restore the wolves into the American landscape.

Now Idaho authorities are prepared to throw all these efforts to the bin. Please sign the petition and tell Idaho agency heads, high-ranking officials and organizers to stop this useless event.

For the first time, a Japanese newspaper has denounced the slaughter of dolphins in the cove at Taiji, a move that has heartened activists and put the Japanese government on notice that the tides may be changing within the country.

On Friday, The Japan Times, the country’s oldest and largest English-language newspaper, ran an editorial that stated, simply, “The dolphin hunt is an inhumane practice that should be stopped.”

The editorial breathed new life into the controversy over the Taiji slaughter, in which roughly 900 dolphins are killed annually in the tiny fishing village, and it led activists to declare a small but significant victory.

Kennedy Tweet Sparks Global Outrage Over ‘Cove’ Slaughter

In 2005, four years before that film drew international media attention to the hunt, O’Barry and activists from Elsa Nature Conservancy (Japan’s oldest environmental group) visited with journalists from some of the country’s newspapers, television channels, and radio stations. “We spent a couple of days giving them packages of information that the dolphin meat is contaminated with high levels of mercury and PCBs,” says O’Barry. But the journalists said their editors would likely “kill the story” for fear their publishers, who often work closely with government officials, would object. None of the outlets O’Barry met with published an anti-hunt op-ed.

The Japan Times editorial pulls no punches. “[The slaughter] is not for the faint of heart. Despite claims of humane killing methods, the video shows the fishermen hacking into the heads and backs of the panicked dolphins.”

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has defended the slaughter, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga recently told reporters that dolphin “fishing” is “traditional” and “carried out appropriately in accordance with the law.”

Animal activists challenge such assertions.

“Their argument that the force of tradition justifies the herding, capturing, and slaughtering of dolphins is a flimsy one,” The Japan Times stated, adding that the drive didn’t become a large-scale industry until 1969, “so its roots are quite shallow.”

O’Barry notes that despite being published in English, Japan Times stories are frequently picked up by Japanese-language papers and monitored by government officials and supporters of the hunts.

“All Japanese activists will read it and be encouraged” by such high-profile opposition, says O’Barry. “Only the Japanese people can stop this,” he adds.

The Cove director Louie Psihoyos is negotiating with the film’s Japanese distributor to buy back the rights. If that happens, the documentary would be shown for free, with subtitles, on YouTube and on popular Japanese websites. “There are 127 million Japanese people who never saw The Cove. When you see the film, you get it,” says O’Barry.

The op-ed’s strongest passage makes the case that tradition is no excuse for exploitive brutality.

“Many past cultural practices, such as slavery, bordellos, and beheading were stopped for ethical reasons,” it stated. “Tradition and culture are forces that change in accordance with new scientific understanding and evolving ethical standards.”

Miami — Currently confined alone to a tank at the Miami Seaquarium that’s smaller than even the minimum standard required by federal law, Lolita the orca’s future could soon take a turn for the better. Following a petition by PETA, the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), Orca Network, and others, the National Marine Fisheries Service today proposed a rule to grant Lolita the same status under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that covers all other Southern Resident orcas—the pod that she was seized from in 1970. PETA and the ALDF believe that the current confinement conditions that Lolita is subjected to are prohibited by the ESA. Today’s action opens the door to the prospect that she could be retired from performing and transferred to a seaside sanctuary, something PETA has long argued for.

“Lolita should never have been excluded from the Endangered Species Act in the first place, and now the government has righted that wrong,” says general counsel to PETA Jeffrey Kerr. “Lolita has suffered in that tank every day for more than four decades, and PETA is working hard to see her one day freed from her ordeal.”

“If Lolita had originally been granted the endangered status that she deserves, she might be back with her family by now,” says ALDF Executive Director Stephen Wells. “The ALDF pledges to do everything in its power to see to it that she’s returned to the sea as soon as possible.”

Lolita—whose family was listed as endangered in 2005—is held in the smallest orca tank in North America and has been kept without another orca since 1980. She is afforded no protection from the sun, and she’s forced to perform tricks, which may violate the ESA’s protection against harm and harassment.

PETA and the ALDF will continue to work to have Lolita released into a seaside sanctuary that is waiting for her in her home waters off Washington’s San Juan Island and, if possible, back into her family pod. In the wild, Southern Resident orcas often spend their entire lives with their mothers. Lolita recognized her pod’s calls decades after being captured, and her 85-year-old mother is still thriving.

Stan Castagno, (registered with the Wyoming Outfittrers and Guide), lured a female wolf out of the protection and sanctuary of Yellowstone Park with a recording of a wolf pup in distress, and shot and killed her. He is very proud of this murder of an innocent animal, and displays it on his Facebook page.

Attempting to find loopholes in existing laws does not make this poacher any less a criminal. Poaching from a sanctuary is unacceptable- the fact that he is a “guide” makes his actions even more reprehenible. Arrest Stan Castagno for poaching violations.

We, the undersigned, call on the the Government of British Columbia to:

1. Immediately cease using neck snares to kill wolves, other carnivores and a host of non-target species on public land in British Columbia.

2. Shift wildlife management priority on public lands away from the protection and welfare of privately owned domestic species to a wildlife management model where on public land priority is given to developing, maintaining, and protecting ecologically functional populations of naturally-occurring species of wildlife, including apex predators.